In this day and age, countless different millions are being diagnosed with mental disorders of all different sorts. Most astonishingly, however, are the amount of individuals getting labeled with just a few of these mental disorders out of the dozens withheld in the psychiatrist’s disorder bible, the DSM IV (or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders version 4). These few that people are getting diagnosed with in increasing numbers are OCD, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, ADD, or attention deficit disorder, as well as another variant of ADD, ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactive disorder, and last but not least, dyslexia. First of all, I’m going to go ahead and toss OCD out of the window for the moment, because OCD can easily be seen as a legitimate disorder, with substantial evidence and perhaps even proof that there are chemical activities taking place within the brain that cause the behavior of one diagnosed with OCD. My problem, of course, is with ADD, and ADHD.

First, let us break down the very wording of these disorders, and go ahead and use the more commonly used phrase, ADHD, as the first example. Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. This compound phrase immediately suggests that one with this ‘disorder’ lacks the ability to pay attention, has hyperactive behavior, and this is a disorder, or a point of behavior that causes a lack of functionality. Most parents are reading magazines, books, entire volumes of information on this subject about their child in an attempt to figure out what is going on, or what is ‘wrong’ with their child. Many have even claimed the entire concept as being a giant hoax, scam, or simply another way that the doctors, drug companies, and psychiatrists can line their pockets with more money.

But with all of the bias aside, it can at least be said that attention deficit disorder is in fact a real condition. Condition being the keyword. For ADHD, let’s consider how one with ADHD interprets information in the brain. Looking at the brain itself, it is apparent that there are no solid differences that we can make out, and for a supposed disorder that over 10 million people in the United States have, this would probably make at least a little bit of sense. How could such a tremendous fraction of the population have a disorder, and henceforth, how could such a tremendous fraction of the population have something dramatically different with their brains? The shear numbers, to me, just don’t seem to add up.

Most of the time, those with ADHD function greatly off of what we mostly know to be an overwhelming weight in right brain dominance. While left brain functions are common to that of the analytical, logical, etc., right brain functions are essentially just the opposite. To have right brain dominance means to excel in areas that are greatly abstract, less grid work, more art, and more exuberant creativity. ADHD kids are almost always greatly right brain dominant, to an overwhelming degree.

Dyslexics usually function a different way. Their thoughts occur so quickly and with such a contradictory method of operating that they will begin to at times feel disorientation. But all of these symptoms are not subject to that of any kind of genetic inheritance, and they are also not the result of any particular physical brain abnormality. These people who dyslexia and ADHD are normal, but because of either early conditioning or even sometimes present conditions, their thought process is entirely different. Most of the people who formulated these particular ideas can attribute much of this to a changing society that is more than ever focused on motion, movement, and media.

Conclusion? ADHD is not a disorder, and neither is dyslexia, but fortunately dyslexia at least, to its credit, does not have the word ‘disorder’ in its title. No doubt, these are conditions and the schools that currently exist should be adapting their methods to the people, not the people adapting to them. These are conditions, not disorders, and it is time the entire psychiatric and psychological community re-evaluated their diagnosis.

Be Sociable, Share!